


To See the Sunlight

by Adaire (AlaeFatorum)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Ferdibert Week (Fire Emblem), M/M, Mermaid Ferdinand, Octopus Hubert, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25803442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlaeFatorum/pseuds/Adaire
Summary: Desiring to walk on the surface, Ferdinand makes a deal with Hubert that will allow him to transform his body. Despite the success of the transformation spell, Hubert continues to request that Ferdinand return to him regularly, hoping to ensure that nothing has gone wrong.In a startling moment of intimacy, Ferdinand begins to wonder what exactly his relationship with this sea witch is—and he makes a mistake.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 23
Kudos: 79





	To See the Sunlight

Ferdinand was on the surface.

Even more than that, he was in _town_ , walking on paved streets, browsing through merchants’ stalls, admiring the townspeople. The sun was beginning to set, the golden rays of daylight fading behind buildings of wood and stone. Ferdinand could not help but smile as the great clock in the center of town sounded the onset of seven-o-clock as he popped the last of the snack he had purchased—some kind of powdered pastry—into his mouth and brushed the residue from his fingers. It was time to begin heading back, now, and so he began his walk once again towards the shore, smile still bright on his face, this particular excursion having become something of a routine over the past few weeks.

Ferdinand had learned quickly, as he had with many of their customs, that humans measured their time rather differently from his own people, adhering to a cycle dictated by the sun and the moon—two things that were typically of far less consequence to merfolk, who hardly required the light of either to see. As such, this schedule tended to work out perfectly—he would spend his days on the surface, and then, when night began to fall, he would retreat to the ocean, stashing away his “human” possessions in a spot he was certain no one would find.

In truth, Ferdinand did not return to the ocean all that frequently these days, too fascinated by the goings-on of surface-dwellers—except for the routine times that Hubert had requested he come see him.

Hubert had disguised these meetings under a medical (or perhaps magical) pretense—he insisted he was ensuring that the magic which allowed Ferdinand to transform was having no adverse effects on his body. Yet Hubert had not once described what these possible “adverse effects” were, and every meeting thus far had seemed to serve more as a social call than anything else. Ferdinand had begun to wonder if the pretense was instead a clever ruse, masquerading as a cure for loneliness—and if that were truly the case, then Ferdinand was happy to provide.

Because for all the time they had spent together the past few months, Ferdinand couldn’t recall a time he had ever seen anyone else visit Hubert. He was aware, certainly, of the sea witch’s prickly nature and rather uninviting demeanor, and he was of course quite knowledgeable regarding all merfolk’s general wariness of such creatures, but that should not mean Hubert was doomed to a life of solitude, should it?

Edelgard did visit, surely. The two of them were friends, yes? Though Ferdinand had never been able to pry out the story of how they’d met—of how they’d even become friends in the first place, much less how a sea witch had come to dedicate himself so completely to a merfolk—and the Emperor had been seriously ill until recently. Did he visit her, then? Or did he stay in his meticulously organized cave, only leaving to gather components for his magic and—well, food, presumably.

Was Hubert lonely?

Ferdinand wondered this frequently, and his curiosity had led them to develop something of a rapport these past few months. He had come to Hubert originally because he was interested in a type of magic that would allow him to explore the surface—disgraced from his birthright following Edelgard’s rise to power (which he did not blame her for, really) and having fallen out of his greedy father’s good graces (for supporting some of the Emperor’s perfectly reasonable ideas), Ferdinand increasingly found the politics of their aquatic empire wearing on him. He did not wish to be stuck here forever, he had decided—not when there was so much yet to explore, lying just out of reach only because he could not force his tail to walk on land.

So he had gone to Hubert, who had eventually proposed a deal following Ferdinand’s growing insistence that he could be useful. The deal was this: Ferdinand was to use his lithe body to gather resources from places that Hubert could not reach—resources he claimed were necessary to save Edelgard’s life—and in return, he would grant Ferdinand the magic necessary to give him legs.

Ferdinand would have agreed solely on the basis of saving the Emperor, but he could not deny the appeal of Hubert’s proposal.

It had all worked out, in the end. Edelgard had made a miraculous recovery, and Ferdinand had learned to walk.

In fact, he had learned a great many things from dwelling among humans, and he found himself endlessly fascinated, constantly searching for the ways in which their lives differed and intersected with those of merfolk. He loved to walk under the sun and the moon—even if it had taken him some time to learn how to properly use his legs. The constant presence of the sky had not yet ceased to amaze him, suddenly so much more than just the occasional sightseeing he experienced whenever he beached himself upon a rock to sunbathe. He loved the trees, too, and the mountains that rose far in the distance, and the architecture of the town itself. Ferdinand was quite certain he could live up here for the rest of his days and never grow bored.

And yet he returned to the sea every few days, like the clockwork the humans were so proud of, at Hubert’s behest.

He enjoyed this, too, because he found himself missing his true form sometimes, even as he delighted in everything else the surface had to offer. He perhaps missed Hubert, too.

Hubert, who no longer bothered to invite Ferdinand in when he arrived at his doorstep, swimming outside of the cave the sea witch had at some point made his home (he claimed that it helped him remain mostly unbothered by any potential neighbors). Hubert, who was currently bent over his desk at an uncomfortable angle, clearly working on something as his octopus-like tentacles reached out to occasionally select an ingredient from rows upon rows of meticulously organized shelving. He had scolded Ferdinand for presuming to place something upon them, once, and Ferdinand had not deigned to touch them since.

“You’re running late, Ferdinand,” the man said as Ferdinand entered what hardly qualified as an abode.

“I was finishing my _dinner,_ ” Ferdinand replied, feigning indignance. “Besides, you have no idea how long it takes to bury a chest filled with clothes and gold in the sand every time I do this! You are lucky I am not any later!”

“Am I? I see you have still not learned the meaning of an inside voice.”

“This cave of yours hardly even qualifies as an inside! If you had seen what the humans do to form their homes—”

“—then I would still choose to live in this cave.” Hubert turned to face Ferdinand at least, the barest hints of a smile playing at his lips.

“You are no fun at all,” Ferdinand huffed, before he remembered what he was clutching in his hand. “Despite that unfortunate fact, I brought you a present anyway.”

“It feels like you are always bringing me presents.”

“Perhaps I am! But that is only because you refuse to accompany me to acquire anything for yourself.” It was true that Ferdinand liked to bring back trinkets; it put some of the money he had taken from his father to use, he thought, and he was grateful the humans seemed to value gold as much as the merfolk did. Once, the gift had been a hairclip—a nearly useless item, given how short Hubert kept his hair, but a lovely one nonetheless. Another time, a knife, polished and sharp and perfectly deadly, which Ferdinand imagined could have any number of uses. There were so many other things he _wanted_ to get him, however, that would be even more impossible: a feathered writing quill, a pair of gloves, a decorative mug. So many things the humans had that simply would not translate well underwater.

Hubert accepted today’s item as it was proffered, his eyes narrowing as he focused on it—a golden chain, from which three pieces of jade had been meticulously crafted to form what Ferdinand believed was a pleasing design.

“I thought it might be useful for one of your spells,” Ferdinand said. “And if not, it still has a lovely design, does it not?”

Hubert thought about this for a moment before simply moving to give it a place among the shelves.

“Hubert, are you quite certain you are unwilling to accompany me one of these days?” Ferdinand thought it was a positively delightful idea, personally; they could walk through the streets, or the forests, or perhaps even up to the mountains, taking in everything they never could before. It was fun enough by oneself, yes, but with another? It would be nothing short of exciting.

Hubert clearly did not think so, a frown darkening his face as he turned back from his shelves.

“I am quite certain.”

“But Hubert, you are always brooding down here in this cave! You never feel the sun on your skin, or look up at the night sky to find it dotted with lights. You do not hear the call of birds or the smell of bread baking, carried to the sea by the wind. It is all so _wondrous_.”

Frown still plastered on his face, Hubert tilted his head slightly. “Is there nothing _here_ that you enjoy?”

“I… I did not say that! It just seems silly to only ever experience half of the world, don’t you think? There is so much out there waiting to be seen, so much that we could learn from—” Ferdinand moved his hands as he talked, their webbed nature pulling the water around him as his body shifted.

“I am only saying, I think you should come with me, sometime. It does not even have to be for very long! We could stroll through the town, could stop for,” he paused, trying to remember the proper terminology, “—pastries, and tea. We could go shopping for clothes, or to their library! Can you imagine how much knowledge on surface customs must be detailed there? Does that not sound remarkable?”

Hubert’s frown somehow deepened even further in the face of Ferdinand’s perfectly reasonable and very exciting proposition. Ferdinand had to remind himself that he knew the man was capable of smiling.

“That sounds _dangerous_ ,” Hubert shot back. Ferdinand only crinkled his eyebrows in response. There was nothing dangerous about a _pastry_ or a _library_.

Ferdinand wasn’t sure what he was doing wrong here. He pushed himself closer to Hubert, determined to make his point.

“It is no more dangerous there than it is here! Perhaps even less so!”

Ferdinand was not inclined to mention that Hubert himself was evidence of this, especially not while swimming so close to him—a predator who had somehow surrounded himself with prey. Hubert, at least, did not seem to hunt merfolk for food, from what Ferdinand could tell. If nothing else, he imagined Edelgard would not approve of such behavior.

Though sometimes Ferdinand wondered.

“Besides,” he continued, determined to sway Hubert to his side, “are you not at all interested in what you would look like as a human? I think you would be very handsome.”

He imagined his cropped black hair, styled properly now that it was no longer disrupted by water, and his eyes, perhaps the color of the jade necklace he had brought back. Perhaps even lighter than that. Ferdinand imagined light reflecting in them, imagined seeing them filled with emotion when he finally, inevitably, made Hubert smile. He would be very handsome, indeed.

Or—perhaps that came out wrong. Ferdinand reached out for Hubert’s hand on a whim, just as he’d seen humans do as they walked through town together, and he was almost surprised when Hubert didn’t pull away. Hubert’s hand was cold, the skin darkened, the texture almost web-like.

“—not that you are not handsome now!” Ferdinand defended. “But it would be quite different, would it not? To have only four limbs instead of ten?”

Hubert wasn’t looking at him anymore—or, at least, not at his face. His eyes were trained on where their hands touched.

“That sounds like a distinct disadvantage,” Hubert said after a moment, as though he’d nearly forgotten they were in the midst of a conversation.

“... Maybe,” Ferdinand admitted, and his voice grew a bit quieter at Hubert’s clear unease. “If you are so set on not transforming, you could still visit with me, you know. We could find a rock to lounge on somewhere, where no one would find us. I could bring us all kinds of food for a picnic, and we could simply watch the sky. You are so pale, the sun might do you some good! Or we could go at night, if you’d prefer—everything is so beautiful, then. Have you ever seen the moon?”

Ferdinand was not entirely sure Hubert had _ever_ been to the surface, given how negatively he spoke about it.

Hubert was watching him now, his face pulled into an expression Ferdinand couldn’t read.

“No,” he said.

“I think you would love it.”

Their hands weren’t together anymore, though their bodies were still incredibly close; Hubert had instead moved his hand higher onto Ferdinand’s forearm, his grip light but not altogether gentle. Hubert’s gaze had followed with it, as if he had never noticed the patch of orange scales that resided there before this moment.

“You seem rather enamored with it,” Hubert said, his voice low, and Ferdinand was suddenly aware of just how close they were, Hubert’s pitch-black tentacles drifting ever closer. “The surface.”

“Perhaps I am.”

The frown returned to Hubert’s face at that, and Ferdinand could not help but feel once again that he’d said something wrong.

“Have you begun to lose any of your scales?” Hubert asked, seemingly apropos of nothing. Ferdinand looked at him with some bewilderment until he realized that Hubert’s hand was pressed over one such scale that was likely to come loose soon, having lost its color and strength.

“It is perfectly natural to shed scales from time to time, Hubert,” Ferdinand defended. Though he did not recall any losing their color to the extent that this one had, he found nothing particularly unsettling about it.

“Ferdinand,” Hubert began after another lengthy pause. Ferdinand found himself wishing he understood the things that Hubert always left unsaid. “Can I tell you something?”

Ferdinand tilted his head, the fins at his ears flexing curiously. “Of course. We are friends, are we not?”

This was a tentative suggestion to begin with, the idea of friendship. On its surface, their relationship was purely transactional—Ferdinand brought materials that Hubert could not easily locate, helped to heal whatever had ailed their Emperor, and Hubert provided him with the magic to transform his body so that he could walk among the humans. This were the full extent of their interactions, but it did not acknowledge how they would sit and talk for hours whenever Ferdinand visited, how he would bring Hubert gifts and trinkets, particularly now that he was embarking on his escapades outside of the ocean. Sometimes Hubert even reciprocated, having once gifted him a golden comb that Ferdinand now kept in his chest on the beach, and Ferdinand thought this may have been an indication that Hubert was warming up to him.

“I suppose,” Hubert responded, his expression still so curious, so sharp. Ferdinand wished desperately to know what was running through that clever head of his, but trying to find anything of use in the voids that were his eyes was pointless.

And that ‘I suppose’—those two simple words qualified as an admission of friendship. Ferdinand had not anticipated the questions this would bring.

Ferdinand recognized that he had been struggling, somewhat, with how to quantify his feelings for Hubert. He did not dislike him, certainly. It was admirable, the way he worried for Edelgard, despite the rest of the merfolk looking at him with disdain. He possessed such diligence in his work, and Ferdinand found his many mannerisms endearing, from how he utilized all of his limbs as efficiently as possible, to the way his eyes would widen in those brief moments when Ferdinand managed to surprise him. He enjoyed the way he attempted to joke, his humor sometimes darker than the even deepest crevasses of the ocean, and yet Ferdinand still laughed. There was his unmatched talent for magic, of course—not to mention the fact he had agreed to help Ferdinand fulfill his dream of traveling to surface at all, albeit with a bit of cajoling.

Still, Ferdinand had not expected it, this freely given kindness still rather foreign to him.

Perhaps he should have. Hubert was not typical, in any sense of the word.

None of this, however, discounted the fact that Hubert was _dangerous_ , both physically and mentally. A small part of his brain dedicated to self-preservation was telling him to run, even now—had been telling him for months that he could not trust a sea witch, could not trust Hubert, who was most assuredly only looking for his next prey. The voice whispered that he would devour Ferdinand eventually—because Hubert had to eat _something_ to survive—and he would preserve anything useful for his potions and incantations, discarding the rest of him to the ocean floor. Perhaps Hubert would make decorations from the scales he was watching so intently now.

This thought caused his pulse to quicken in an instant, set his heart racing in his chest, despite the fact that Hubert had not done anything wrong—had never done anything to suggest Ferdinand was ever in real danger. Perhaps that was the mark of a good predator, or perhaps they were truly friends.

These thoughts did nothing to help Ferdinand sort through his feelings.

It occurred to him then that Hubert had not yet stated his request. He had agreed only to their friendship—and that alone had caused Ferdinand’s thoughts to spiral out of his control, as if caught in a whirlwind.

“Hubert?” Ferdinand prompted.

“It is just that I… have never truly seen you.”

Ferdinand’s brows drew together in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“My kind,” Hubert spoke, and Ferdinand could not recall a time Hubert had ever referred to ‘his kind.’ “We don’t register color in the way you do. It is always black and white, unless we—” Hubert paused, pulling his own hand away from Ferdinand’s wrist and holding it up for a moment. If his—or, perhaps, Ferdinand’s—expression were any indication, this was likely not a satisfactory answer, and thus Ferdinand watched as Hubert reached for a handful of golden hair, fingers curling around it from where it was suspended in the water around them.

“Touch,” Ferdinand offered simply, realization dawning, the word barely a whisper.

“It is not so simple as that, but… yes, in effect.”

They could do something about this, surely. There was an easy solution, Ferdinand thought, as long as he was willing to offer himself up further.

“You… wish to see me then? Is that it?”

“I—”

“You can be honest, Hubert.”

“I… do.”

“Here, then,” Ferdinand said quietly, and he pressed Hubert’s hand against his cheek. “See me.”

This presented an entirely new tangent of thought to drift toward.

The concept of _love_ seemed impossible, particularly when they had only just admitted to being friends. The man before him was a sea witch, one many thought to be monstrous, and as things stood, Ferdinand had no plans to remain within the ocean beyond these meetings. He was not in love. He could not be in love.

He thought this even as Hubert’s hand rested on his face, even as tentacles slowly surrounded him to trail through his hair and curl around his tail.

Certainly no one had ever touched him with so much care before, he thought as Hubert held him. Certainly no one had ever taken such an interest in him.

 _Dangerous_ , the voice whispered, even as he was unable to stop himself from leaning into Hubert’s touch. _Of course he would try to make you feel special._

Hubert had never done this before, that much was certain. He’d been only one step away from open hostility when they’d first met, and yet had done nothing to try and hurt him then. It did not make sense, this voice in his head telling him to flee.

_He has already given you what you wanted, and still he calls you back here. Why? These visits have amounted to nothing. He is trying to take you away from the surface._

Why?

_He is luring you in._

Then why did he help me?

_It does not matter; one bite is all it would take. One bite, and you would be paralyzed, killed, and devoured._

Ferdinand simultaneously wished to be both closer and far, far away. He wished to be further entangled in Hubert’s grasp, but he also wanted—needed—the space to breathe. The space to think.

“I find it... difficult to say this, but—” came Hubert’s voice, so low and lovely and frightening that it amplified every feeling in his body all at once. “You are beautiful, Ferdinand.”

All this time, and Hubert had never seen Ferdinand in his entirety—still did not, if his words regarding his kind’s color blindness were to be believed. He only saw the pieces he could touch, or so he had said.

“You think so?” he whispered, hoping he did not give away his own trepidations as they thundered away in his heart.

“Yes,” Hubert said, with all the weight the word could have. “Your hair, your eyes, your scales,” he continued. “They are like the sun. All this time, and I never knew—”

 _These are the parts of you he will keep._ Ferdinand forced his eyes shut at the thought, all the more aware of the limbs settling over his body. The question of whether or not Hubert had ever _seen_ the sun was discarded, his ability to form words and think properly failing him entirely.

“You are dazzling,” Hubert said, and Ferdinand could have cried if the ocean was not surrounding them.

“That is not to say—” the sea witch continued, stumbling over his words in way he never had. “—I have grown to admire other things about you, as well. Your—cleverness. Your optimism. Your heart.”

A hand came up to rest over where the organ lay in his chest, its pace quickening by the second. If those tentacles were to tighten around him, it would take only a moment to crush him completely.

Trapped. He was trapped.

This tenderness, this affection, it must have been a ploy. A ruse. A lure. _Love_ was a distant thought.

Hubert planned to keep him here.

“I know it is... not what you had in mind, given how you talk about it, but I thought I would ask if you—if you would consider staying here, in the ocean. With me, rather than returning to the surface.”

Ferdinand would later judge what he did next to be something of an overreaction, a panic brought on by overstimulation, perhaps more emotional than physical. Ferdinand knew Hubert had tried to say more as Ferdinand twisted out of his grasp and fled the cave altogether, but Ferdinand had not heard it. He remembered the worried expression—the _hurt_ —on Hubert’s face as he’d pushed him away, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not recall the words that had formed on his lips.

He wished, desperately, that he had listened.

**Author's Note:**

> It's Ferdibert Week!! Have a story for Day 1: Mermaids! I have so many ideas for the prompts, though I'm not sure I'll have the time to fill all of them, which makes me SAD. 
> 
> This piece is actually just a small snippet of an AU that [@PhantomR_art](https://twitter.com/PhantomR_art) and I have been working on together!! PLEASE check out their piece [here](https://twitter.com/PhantomR_art/status/1292464485383278592?s=20) because it's SO BEAUTIFUL 
> 
> I'm really hoping to write more for this, because it's a fantastic concept!! It just might take some time just because of work and scheduling. 
> 
> This is my first foray into a merfolk AU of any sort, so hopefully it was enjoyable to read! If you're interested in more Ferdibert, I can be found on twitter [@celestial_tart!](https://twitter.com/celestial_tart)


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